13. The Mist Thief
Chapter 13
We stepped off the dock onto the damp cobbles of a wide road. A slender hand shot out and took hold of the prince’s arm before I even realized a woman was there.
“Well, this must be her.”
Jonas’s expression turned smug. “Why so sour, Friggy? Miss us?”
The woman was dressed in a pale tunic and oversized trousers, kept a sliver of wood between her teeth and tilted her head to reveal her eyes hidden beneath the brim of a straw hat.
“The day I miss you is the day the gods come to claim me as their mistress.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Frigg.” Sander shoved past us, his own shoulders lined in satchels, and tapped the brim of the woman’s hat. “It could happen.”
Frigg shot a glare at the other prince and tore off her hat to readjust it. She was bony in her features, sharp cheeks, and a narrow nose. But there was a rugged loveliness about the woman. Long corn silk hair braided over her shoulders, pink lips, and sharp blue eyes.
She seemed familiar—comfortable—with the prince. I hated how some part of me cared to know if she was a lover.
What would it matter if she was? Heartache would follow if I fell into those verdant eyes, the sly jests off his tongue, if I started to believe Jonas Eriksson had any plans to cherish me.
“What brings you down to the shore?” Jonas asked Frigg. “Thought you’d be helping your maj with her orders.”
A bit of pride brightened Frigg’s eyes. “I was until I saw the ship. So, you going to introduce me or what?”
The woman returned her scrutiny to me.
“Not sure I should subject her to the likes of you,” said Jonas.
“You’re an ass.”
I looked away. “Folk keep calling you that.”
Jonas merely laughed. “Frigg Hob, meet Princess Skadinia of Natthaven. My wife.”
“Skadi.” I swallowed and held out a hand. Frigg glanced at it, pausing long enough, I wondered if I’d caused offense. In the next breath, she clasped my forearm, like we were warrior maidens together.
“Can’t believe you’re vowed.” She shook her head. “Best of luck, Princess. He’s a ridiculous amount of work.”
“Jakoby, look, they’re back.” A woman with satin black hair stepped onto the stoop of a stone shop with a roof that tilted one way while the walls leaned another.
Frigg snorted a laugh. “Ah, you’ve been spotted. Hold tight, Princess. My mother hasn’t stopped talking about this since the announcement was made. She won’t admit it, but she wanted to be the one to make your dress. Been studying elven fashions as best she can.”
A woman here wanted to make a gown for me? She knew nothing about me save for the truth that I was positioned on the opposing side of a battle.
“Inge, my love.” Jonas opened his arms.
With her skirt gathered in her hands, Frigg’s mother laughed, then wrapped the prince in her arms that barely reached around his broad body. “A vowed man? Can’t believe it.”
“Maj.” Frigg plucked the sliver of wood from her teeth. “Meet Jonas’s wife—Skadi.”
“All gods. An elven princess.” Inge waved her hand stiffly by her side. “Jakoby. Jak. Come here.”
“My sweet, I’m clearly coming.” A lanky man sauntered toward the docks, a paper smoke between his teeth, and dark hair tucked behind his ears beneath a napless cap. The man had a devious sort of glint to his dark eyes, but it softened when he pressed a kiss to Frigg’s brow.
“Well, well.” He spoke around the paper smoke. “Wasn’t a big jest, and the boy brought home a wife.”
“Princess, these are my parents, Inge and Jakoby Hob.” Frigg gestured at them, as though putting her mother and father on display. “Like I said, Maj would fall into the Otherworld if you’d let her make you a dress.”
“I’d be bleeding honored. The way the elven use real gold in their threads.” Inge practically hummed. “Stunning.”
I returned a cautious smile, uncertain what to say or what to approve here. Jakoby clasped Jonas’s arm in a greeting.
“Hob.” Jonas grinned. “Before we left, I heard you and old Hervor had a falling out.”
The man frowned. “Is that what he’s saying? I ought to rob him blind. Gods, it’s been so long since I’ve been on a good heist.”
“Herv would take to knives if you try it.”
Frigg’s father scoffed. “What sort of cutthroat do you take me for, boy? A slob?”
Jonas laughed, and I felt as though my world had been turned upside down. Cutthroats, heists. What was this place?
“Oh, let it be.” Inge kissed her husband’s cheek. “You’ll need to forgive Jak, Princess. He takes it rather personally if someone does not praise my every piece.”
“Hervor damn near insulted you, sweet.” Jakoby drew a long puff of his smoke.
Jonas rolled his eyes and shook his head. “We ought to be on our way. Inge.” The prince waited until the woman met his gaze. “My wife won’t ask for it, so just make her the dress. I’ll send you the penge for payment tomorrow.”
“Best of luck, Princess,” Frigg called after us when Jonas urged us down the path. “He really is a horrid amount of work!”
She snickered with a bit of wickedness when the prince shot a crude gesture back at her without turning around.
Dorsan kept a pace behind us, hand never falling from the hilt of his blade, but his gaze kept watch on the few towers near the gates.
Men leaned out the windows, less formal than the elven guard, more from curiosity. They murmured to their watch partners, some gnawing on strips of jerky or roots, then pointed down at the road.
I felt like a damn spectacle.
Near the gates to the inner town were three black coaches with silver edging along the side panels.
“Seems my family has abandoned us.” Jonas propped his hands on his waist as the first coach peeled away into the crowds.
A crack of leather lurched the second coach forward.
“Jonas. This one’s open.” A thick-necked man stood beside the door.
He wasn’t alone. The man with silver eyes who’d been taunting the alver king winked and spun a knife in each hand with unnerving precision.
The prince tossed the packs on his shoulders into the cab. “I don’t believe you’ve met any of the Kryv yet. Dorsan, if you see them lurking, I assure you they aren’t here for assassinations.”
“Unless that was our plan,” the man with knives said. “Keep you comfortable all your life, then strike.”
I laced my fingers in front of my body. “The Kryv? Is that what you call the guard?”
“No.” Jonas let his thumbs hook around the top of his belt. “The Kryv are a guild, so I suppose they might be comparable to inner circles of other kingdoms.”
“Only a little more wretched.” The man winked and tucked his knives into sheaths on his thighs.
“I don’t understand.”
Jonas folded his arms over his chest. “When my father greets the Otherworld, he will not wish to be remembered as a king. In fact, he’d come back through the gates to slit our throats if we try. He will want to be remembered as a thief, scoundrel, and guild lead of the Kryv.”
I scoffed, as though it were a jest, but I was the only one. “You speak true?”
The silver-eyed man leaned a shoulder against the side of the coach. “We don’t jest about our glorious past of heists and schemes, lovey.”
“This sod is Raum,” Jonas said, clapping him on the shoulder, then turning to the brute of muscle and leather “And this berserker, here, is Lynx.”
The other man dipped his chin and murmured a soft, “Princess.”
“You’ll see the Kryv about. Ignore their poor manners and watch your jewels.”
“How dare you.” Raum pressed a hand to his chest, disgust curled on his lip. “I won’t be thieving from the princess.” He turned to me. “Not unless she deserves it.”
I cracked a knuckle, wholly unsettled.
Jonas did not hold the same disquiet, merely chuckled, then held out a hand for me. Warmth from his palms scorched under the chill of my fingertips.
The dark centers of his eyes flared as he handed me into the coach and heat flooded my veins. For a pause, we merely stood there, nose to nose.
Gods, what the hells was wrong with me?
I shook away the prickle of his touch and stepped into the coach. He was not going to love me. In truth, it was a bit puzzling that my new husband did not still wish me dead.
Violence was in his blood—I witnessed it firsthand during the battle.
“You killed him.” The prince hovered over me, eyes black as the wing of a raven. His palms clasped my head and when the cold filled my skull, all I heard were my own screams as the nightmares flooded my mind.
Knives slashing my grandfather’s chest while he sobbed for the pain to end.
Cold hands shouting at me to cut out the darkness, then a lithe body rewarding me by pinning my hands over my head and telling me he would love me as he thrust too hard.
A woman who kissed me goodnight while a tall man blew out a small flame, leaving promises of swimming in the morning. But their smiles faded to lifeless eyes and cold flesh beside me as fists pounded at the door, there to take me away.
“Where did your thoughts go? Raum won’t truly rob you.”
I jumped when fingers tapped the top of my palm. The prince pulled his hand away and took his place on the opposite bench in the coach.
“It’s just been a long journey,” I lied.
Once Dorsan was seated on the driver’s bench of the coach, Raum clapped on the side, and the charge lurched forward.
My spine was straight, stiff, senses at the ready for an attack from this lawless sort of kingdom at any moment.
Jonas slumped against the back of the bench. “How do you wish to spend your first night here?”
I folded my hands in my lap, watching the crooked walls of shops shift to stone walls. “I am accustomed to being solitary. If you have somewhere else to go, someone else to be with, I understand.”
“I won’t deny, I enjoy the hint of jealousy in your tone.”
My mouth pinched when I met his gaze. “I think you are hoping to hear jealousy. I am not blinded to your attractive . . .” Good hells, I cut off my words before I made an utter fool of myself.
It was too late.
“Attractive, you say?” Jonas leaned forward. With such a small space, it was simple enough to draw his face close, his breath warm on my lips with each word. “Think my bed will be filled tonight? Think my hands will be caressing a woman’s skin?”
He was goading me.
“It certainly will give me freedom to do as I wish.”
“Oh? And what is that?”
The damn prince did not pull back. His nearness was made worse when he tilted his terribly beautiful face, as though he might align our mouths.
“I suppose you can wonder while you are tangled with your lover.”
Jonas studied me for a drawn pause. “Who should I take as a lover?”
His hand fell to my knee, thumb rubbing slow, tight circles over my skirt.
“Frigg is rather lovely.”
His mouth twitched, his hand eased up my leg. “She is.”
“And she seems fond of you, so simple enough. Perhaps she is already your lover.”
“She is not, and there are a few problems with your choice of woman.” Jonas’s wicked fingers dug into my upper thigh, voice a low rasp. “Frigg has been a friend since birth and doesn’t much care for cock. Prefers women, you see.”
He kept his hand climbing. I bit down on the tip of my tongue to keep in a gasp of pleasure when the prince curled his palm around my hip, yanking me forward to the edge of the bench.
The angle of his knees forced mine to split. One of his legs was positioned between my thighs, and bunches of my gown furled around him. My knee was nearly nuzzling his length.
I glanced down to see how near, once, twice. Shame heated my face and I forced my attention to the top of the coach.
Jonas held me in a way that my body tangled around him as much as possible without straddling his lap.
I was a weak woman, for I wasn’t certain I’d mind if I did.
“I’ll rephrase my previous question.” The prince spoke with a deep silky darkness, so near to my parted lips the heat of every word brushed over my tongue. “Would it bother you if I spent my time with other women?”
“No.”
“If you care so little, I wonder why your skin is flushed, Wife.”
“I’m merely annoyed by your nearness.”
He returned a wolfish grin. “Ah, see, I thought you might’ve imagined being the one in my bed. It is a marvelous thought, you ought to give it a go.”
“Only in my nightmares.” The lie felt heavy with each word.
“But they would be such satisfying nightmares.” The prince leaned forward. “And I think you are lying.”
He gripped a handful of my gown, like he might lift it, baring my thighs to him.
I didn’t push him away.
My voice was ragged, too low, too soft. “I will not tell you to do otherwise. Your folk even made it clear we were not bound to fidelity. Perhaps I’ll do the same.”
Rough breaths made the prince’s shoulders rise and fall with a bit of strain. “If you’re trying to get under my skin, you’re succeeding. The notion of you being seen by anyone else has me feeling rather violent.”
He couldn’t mean it. It didn’t fit the reality I’d shaped for this vow.
One corner of my lip curled. “Are you saying you want to reap the benefits of your claim on me, Prince?”
“My wants must come second.” He tilted his head. “Until you want the same, my hand will be my lover.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t blame you.”
Jonas’s palm drifted up my spine, slow and sensual, the tips of his fingers memorizing each pearl button on my gown. This close, my breasts brushed against his chest.
Perhaps it was imagined, but a flash of dark ink seemed to spill into his eyes, and a strange rumble rolled from his throat on his next draw of air.
“I will do what I can to prove it to you,” Jonas said.
“You are not obligated to me but on the full moon. I am not here to disrupt your existence. I am simply your wife.”
Jonas dragged the tip of his nose across my cheek. I fisted my palms over my knees.
When he spoke, his lips grazed my ear. “Yes you are, Fire.”
Need throbbed between my thighs, and for a fleeting moment, I imagined his mouth on my neck, the hand on my spine unfastening those buttons.
Before I could rationalize through the haze, I let my knees widen a bit more, and nudged forward until the point of his knee added friction and pressure to the ache of my core. Jonas moaned and turned his face against me, his teeth nipped at one of the rings in my ear.
The coach shuddered to a halt, nearly spilling me off the last bit of the bench.
Jonas pulled away, blinking like he’d been tossed into the shadows of want as much as me. When movement from the front rocked the coach, I hurried to smooth out my skirts and return to my stiff, distant position on my seat, head turned away from my husband.
In another heartbeat, Dorsan wrenched open the door. “We’ve arrived, My Lady.”